View full sizeTwo Auburn professors are seeking grant money to help scientifically prove whether or not Alabama beaches are clean after last summer's oil spill. Sam Lee, 7, of Memphis, Tenn. pulls his beach toys across the sand as contractors work to clean the sand on the beach just west of the Florida Alabama State Line, in Orange Beach using a "Sand Shark" Monday, Oct. 18, 2010. (Press-Register/Bill Starling)

ORANGE BEACH, Ala. — A pair of Auburn University engineering professors want to help scientifically prove whether the beaches are clean.

Joel Hayworth and Prabhakar Clement told the City Council this week that they hope to have some of their findings released by the anniversary of the April 20 Deepwater Horizon explosion that left 11 dead and slathered Alabama’s beaches with oil.

They are asking the city for $100,000 to $105,000 to support their research.

"We know that BP has done a lot of work to clean the beaches, but what does that mean with respect to clean? It depends on how you define clean," Hayworth said. "There’s a real need to be able to state that in some defensible scientific way as quickly as possible."

For months, the city has collected air, water and sediment samples to test for oil and dispersants, and reached out to scientists at the Dauphin Island Sea Lab along with universities around the state to help analyze what was found, said Community Development Director Kit Alexander.

Officials have said that areas such as Cotton Bayou were free of dispersant, but testing has continued.

Analysis from scientists like Clement and Hayworth would "help us to determine what’s going on and what our future brings," Alexander said.

Ever since oil hit the shores, BP PLC has had crews cleaning it up, and the oil giant is in the midst of wrapping up a months-long deep beach cleanup in which tar has been scrubbed from beneath the surface of the sand.

The deep clean wrapped up at the beginning of the year in Orange Beach and this week in Gulf Shores, with officials in each city monitoring the work.

In Orange Beach, Mayor Tony Kennon sent crews to the sand with augers to determine whether anything was left behind.

"But if you don’t do that in a particularly systematic way, then there’s always that lingering question: Did we see everything?" Hayworth said. "Do we have a way of saying with some high degree of confidence, ‘yes, now we know they did a good job’?"

Clement has spent months collecting beach samples in Mason jars.

"Our vision is to actually find out what’s going on to empower you with scientific information so you can go after BP and do the right thing," he said.

Kennon pushed BP to clean the beaches in time for spring break, and said that as the anniversary of the disaster approaches he wants to "say we have a clean bill of health for our air, water and soil."

While the scientists may have preliminary results ready by the anniversary, Hayworth said the study would likely continue beyond that date.

Some of the key questions Hayworth said they want to answer: "How does something like this affect the beach ecosystem? How does it affect the physical nature of the beach? How long does it take for a beach like this to recover? What are the appropriate ways to respond in the future?

"Most people want to look at it as a static event. OK, the beaches are now clean and will be clean forever more. But the reality is that beaches are very dynamic systems."

Councilwoman Pattisue Carranza said she thought the findings would help residents as much as anyone who visits the beachfront community.

"What we want is the individual perspective, not the tourists’ perspective, not the science perspective, but what’s it going to do to children and grandchildren in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?" Carranza said. "What’s it going to do to people my age in 30 years?"

Council members appeared to favor the proposed research, but no vote was taken at a committee of the whole meeting Tuesday.

Kennon said "it may be the best $100,000 we’ve ever invested on the backside."